Answer:
The five-year plan or officially the "Five-year plan for the USSR national economy" was a series of general plans for the economic development of the entire Soviet Union.
The plan was developed by Gosplan based on the Communist Party's general guidelines for economic development. Fulfilling the plan, preferably ahead of time, became central to the Soviet bureaucracy. The same method of economic development was also used by other so-called socialist countries and some other countries, such as India. The idea of centralized economic development plans has also influenced capitalist countries by setting integrated economic goals for a specific period.
The first Soviet five-year plan was introduced by Josef Stalin in 1929, just two years after he became head of the union. The goal was a rapid industrialization of the Soviet Union. Heavy industry such as power plants, mines and smelters as well as electrification were prioritized ahead of consumer goods. The result of this was that agriculture was brought together in collective farms to streamline production, and the labor force that was redundant was forced to participate in industrialization by working in factories. Exports of agricultural products increased tremendously, although production went down as much as 30% in some places. This led to famine in the North Caucasus and Ukraine, and millions died as a result. The industrialization itself was otherwise successful and was completed in just four years, not five as planned.
In all, there were 13 five-year plans in the Soviet Union. The last five-year plan covered the period from 1991 to 1995 and was never completed when the Soviet Union disbanded in 1991.
